The Thursday Scramble: Round 8

Are you ready for a “normal” weekend of Fantasy Footy?  Seems a long time since we have had that doesn’t it.  But this week we are back to somewhat normality. Does that mean it is going to get any easier?  Nope, sure doesn’t! Time to Scramble!!

So what next?

It is about now in the season that we have to start making some decisions that could be tough. We want to keep improving our sides by getting rid of some rookies and trading up to get the fallen premiums. But we have to do all of that while we are managing the rest of our so called premiums who, to be quite honest, some of them are sucking right at the moment.  So what do we do?

There are plenty of tried and true methodologies in this game and the one that I generally try and stick to is to stand by your premiums until they are all you have. By that I mean, don’t worry too much about someone who has had a couple of bad weeks when you can get a rookie off of your field through going one down and one up.  My thoughts behind that are that the premium who is struggling is likely to have a floor somewhere around 60 or so but a ceiling that could go as high as 115. But the rookie or mid pricer that you have on the field that you would need to keep if you decide to deal with that premium could have a ceiling of maybe 70-80 but a floor of 30-40. So by playing the odds you are more likely to be better off still by moving on that mid pricer or rookie than playing around with the premium.

A good case in point here is Chad Warner. His scores have gone 92, 66, 129, 41, 86, 71, 119. Now I know there is a 41 in there but other games where we have thought of him as poor have been in the 65+ range.  Again, not ideal but he has also thrown a couple of 115+ scores in there to to have an average at the moment of 86.3. Let’s compare that to a Hugo Garcia who has been a popular mid pricer who has gone 59, 27, 110, 42, 82, 84, 20.  Now admittedly he has had a vest or two, but so has Warner.  And whilst Hugo has had three decent scores he has thrown in two in the 20s and one in the 40s.  So what I am saying here is don’t be blinded by the two 80s in a row he had, given the chance last week we should have been looking at trading him out on a high rather than risk another low score which is what he delivered. But many wanted to trade out a Warner after an 86 and 71 but he delivered after that.  The other example is Xerri who had a run of three in the 70s and people were calling for his head, but we knew he was injured in that time and has since responded with two over 115.

I guess the point I am making here is to stay the course and keep going with your upgrade and downgrade plans unless there is a significant reason to cull a ‘premium’. One that comes to mind is Tom Stewart and that is predominantly because we know that he is carrying an injury and hence will struggle to score if he can stay on the park.

Things to Remember

• The last game of the round this week is another late one starting at 7:20p EST so just keep that in mind. But the rest of the round will follow our regular formula.
• Stick with your plans and get that team as good as you can as quick as you can then you can go about doing some luxury trading.
• Listen to Cal. He is seeing them like beachballs (but if it goes to poo we can blame him!)

Good luck this weekend folks. Again sorry for the shorter scramble. I am flat out with work so not as much time to write for you.
But if you have anything particular you want covered in a future scramble please either hit me up on twitter or drop a comment below and I will be sure to try and accomodate you.

Cheers and see you next Thursday.

Dunny

A passionate Port Adelaide Fan who simply loves footy! That is how I would describe myself. Catch my weekly article "The Thursday Scramble" with all the last minute things to think about for the weekend Follow: @pkd73.